“No.” He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “Actually, a plesiosaur bit me. I didn’t want to tell you because you seem to have a phobia.”
“Ha.” She chewed her lip. “Was that rude of me, asking?”
“A little.” He sighed. “I was born this way. It’s a skeletal limb abnormality.”
“I’m sorry. I asked without thinking.”
“You’re not entitled to the knowledge, is all. It’s my personal info. You know?”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“D’you want to ask me something intrusive now?” she said. “You can. I feel I owe you.”
“No thanks.”
“Ask me.”
“That’s all right.”
“Go on.”
“Fine. Ah, besides plesiosaurs, what scares you the most? Really, truly terrifies you?”
“My brother,” Adelaide said, the answer coming out before she had time to craft an amusing reply.
* * *
He picked up a tennis ball that was lying in the sand. “Birthday! Come here, boy.”
“She’s a girl,” Adelaide said.
“Come here, girl.”
B-Cake ignored him.
“She doesn’t fetch,” Adelaide told him. “I know that dog.”
The boy laughed. “Okay. I don’t need to throw if she’s not into it.” He sat down next to her. “I’m just taking her this weekend while the owner’s out of town. Are all of these yours?” He was talking about EllaBella, Rabbit, and the rest.
“I just walk them.”
He reached down to pet EllaBella, who was lying at Adelaide’s feet. “This dog is my favorite,” he said. “She has an excellent beard.” EllaBella was a bushy black mutt, nearly fifteen years old.
“She’s my favorite too,” Adelaide whispered. “But don’t tell the others.”
EllaBella was owned by Derrick Byrd, a single teacher of history. He’d come to Alabaster last year. He still had unpacked boxes in his house, which was two doors down from her dad’s.
“I never tell secrets,” said the boy. She liked the way his mouth moved when he spoke. He had blue paint underneath his nails.
“What did you paint?” she asked.
“I have access to the art studio for the summer. I’m painting abstract shapes, I guess you’d call them. Things that look like other things but aren’t those things.”
“Like what?”
“This one I’m doing—don’t laugh.”
“I won’t.”
“Well, you can laugh. It’s kind of a hippopotamus and it’s kind of a car. And also, it’s kind of a church. The meaning is what the viewer sees in it.”
“Hm.”
“I’m not getting the effect I want,” he said. “A lot of them look like blobs, not church hippos or whatever. It’s just the start of an idea.”
“What year are you?” she asked.
“Rising senior.”
“I’ve never seen you. On campus.”
He told her he had just transferred in. “My mother died six months ago.” She’d had leukemia. He and his father had just relocated from Spain. His dad used to teach at Alabaster and was now going to head the Modern Languages department.
“I’m so sorry,” Adelaide said. “About your mother.”
“Yeah, well. Thanks.” Lord Voldemort came up and wagged his stubby tail. “How come you walk so many dogs?”
“The teachers go away on summer travel. My father teaches English, but this summer he’s working in Admissions for extra money. I got the idea to collect people’s dogs and take them out, morning and evening. I feed them, too.”
“I’m gonna get Birthday to fetch,” he said. “Watch me.”
He chased after B-Cake, showing her the tennis ball. “You know you want it. Look at it, so yellow. Covered with awesome dog slime. Watch it, watch it!”
B-Cake ignored him. Finally, Pretzel leaped up and grabbed the tennis ball from the boy’s hand, then took it off to a corner to enjoy.
Adelaide smiled for the first time since Mikey had broken up with her.
“What are their names?” the boy asked.
“The big black one is EllaBella. The small hairy one who took the tennis ball is Pretzel. The pit bull is Rabbit.”
“Aren’t pit bulls vicious?”
“They have a strong bite, but nah. If they’re treated well, they have good personalities.”
“Wait, isn’t this one a pit bull too?” He pointed.
“Nuh-uh. The Great God Pan is a French bulldog.”
“And that one?”
“Lord Voldemort is a bull terrier.”
He shrugged. “Variations on a theme. Same basic thing.”
“You said something similar when we met at the rooftop party.”
He shook his head, not remembering.
“You said,” explained Adelaide, “that all the roof parties were variations on a theme. You said the parties echoed each other. Warm summer nights, drinks in plastic washtubs and people in shorts. The same songs playing.”
Remember me, she willed him.
Remember the party. And the poem.
Remember what you said. Then remember what I said.
“That dog is trying to jump the fence,” the boy announced.
Adelaide looked.
Rabbit the pit bull was crouched, waggling her back end like a cat about to spring.
“She can’t go over,” Adelaide said.
“She’s trying. Look at her try.”
And Rabbit jumped.
Rabbit was burly and dark gray, with a white chest and white paws. Her mouth was that wide pit-bull mouth that looks like a smile, and her legs were short and stocky. Her neck was so thick it could not properly be called a neck at all.
She cleared the fence.
In a hot second she was followed by B-Cake. It defied the laws of physics.
Adelaide took a run at the fence and jumped herself over. The boy came out through the gate holding the leash. “Birthday! Come here, Birthday!” he called.